A mid-life common sense health and wellness journey to examine, evaluate, and choose our ideal path — by eating Paleo, exercising daily, and using herbal based remedies — to ensure we are around to enjoy our retirement and future family.

Menu

Compost Bin and Herb Garden

As 2013 quickly comes to an end, 2014 is arriving full of promise and I have a new compost bin and herb garden.

Since we started our “one year to wellness” journey back on November 1st, I have been wanting to start composting. Paleo cooking leaves a good bit of organic matter (egg shells, carrot tops, lettuce leaves, etc) that can be used to add to a compost bin. So I have looked unsuccessfully multiple times for just the right compost bin, on my trips to Lowes and Home Depot. My goal has always been to get a compost bin started before the end of 2013. So, today, December 31st, I finally gave up searching locally and ordered the right one online. However, it will take a couple of weeks to get it here, so to meet my 2013 deadline, I built the below temporary compost bin.

Homemade Compost Bin1

Homemade Compost Bin2

Homemade Compost Bin3

Tracy and I are focusing more and more on the natural and organic foods we eat and more importantly where they come from. So, our new compost bin will feed our new raised garden bed…8-)

Vito built it…

Sadie inspected it…

We are planting it…

Now, I must give credit where credit is due and our new bed was built by a friend of ours, Vito, an engineer who works with wood on the side. Most of what Vito builds supports his wife, Darlene who is an environmental horticulturist. They make a great team and we appreciate their help along our journey. We often ask for Darlene’s advice on how to plant and care for our landscape plants, bushes and trees. You can read Darlene’s blog or follow her on Facebook at Darlene’s Garden.

What are we going to plant and grow? Well, the plan is to plant seasonal vegetables that we can use both for cooking and juicing. One of my Christmas presents from Tracy was The Whole Seed Catalog from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I am going through it now to find heirloom varieties of lettuce, kale, carrots, and spinach that we can grow here in Pensacola. The only problem is the catalog has more than 300 pages of seeds to choose from…8-)

To be honest, I have never really composted and I have not worked in a backyard garden since I was a young boy. But, I am excited about this project and will write more as it develops.

Finally, let me close out this post (and 2013) by wishing everyone a very happy and wonderful New Year.